Catalyst
by Mauve Alert
Summary: His tshirt is emblazoned with a graphic of a burning blimp, and Sophie wonders if this is his way of warning the world that he, like the Hindenburg, is doomed to go down in flames. The Doctor, OC, not a romance.


_**Disclaimer**_ - Not mine. I'm just playing in other peoples' world.  
**_Summary_** - _His t-shirt is emblazoned a graphic of a burning blimp, and Sophie wonders if this is his way of warning the world that he, like the Hindenburg, is doomed to go down in flames._

_**A/N**_ -This is in the same universe as my story _Denaturing_. It might be confusing if you haven't read that, I'm not sure. If you haven't, the character is Sophie, the daughter of an (OC) companion, and the Doctor is in his eleventh regeneration. _  
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**Catalyst**

Sophie wraps her hands around the cool metal and lets herself dangle from the monkey bars, feet swinging two or three feet above the ground. The sun is warm on her skin and the wind blows her skirt gently against her legs. She shakes her hair from her eyes and giggles with the sheer happiness of being a three-year-old playing at the park on a perfect day.

As she reaches for the next bar, an odd shiver goes down her spine and she turns her head instinctively. There is a man staring at her from the other side of the fence; he seems odd but she doesn't know why. For a split-second, she catches sight of orange-brown hair, a blue suit jacket, and burning eyes behind square glasses.

Her hand misses the second monkey bar and she falls with a startled shriek.

It isn't 'til hours later, when she's come home from the hospital with a bright pink cast on her wrist, that Sophie remembers the man. Her face feels wet even though she stopped crying _ages_ ago.

That night she dreams of blue boxes and ginger hair.

- - -

The air smells of snow and car exhaust and Christmas. Sophie skips down the sidewalk alongside her father, sometimes clutching his gloved hand with her smaller, mittened one, sometimes running ahead. He is asking about what she wants to get her mother and offering suggestions. She half-listens as she tries to catch snowflakes on her tongue and waves to the sidewalk Santas.

In a shop window she sees her reflection and smiles, drawing closer to look at the image of herself: all bundled up in her pink parka and snowboots and the scarf she's had ever since forever, the striped one that's old and way too big and smells like adventure.

In the glass, she sees a blue box and ginger hair and she whirls. There he is, across the street: the man with the burning eyes, hands jammed into the pockets of his suit jacket, staring at her with an intensity that she can feel even at a distance. It's been over five years since she broke her wrist at the park but she remembers him, watching her fall off the monkey bars. It's one of her very earliest memories.

She stares at him, feeling shivery and not from the cold. She imagines that she can feel tears on her cheeks but she's not crying.

Then her father is taking her hand and leading her into the store, scolding her for falling behind. Sophie casts one last look over her shoulder but the man is gone.

A few moments later, the building across the street goes up in flames.

- - -

The sun is shining brightly and Sophie instinctively tilts her face up to the sky as she steps off the bus, drinking in the light and the warmth. Beside her, her best friend Jessa is bouncing in excitement. _Field trip, _her jittery body hums. The science museum, the Omnitheatre, rock candy from the gift shop to eat on the way home. . .

Mr. Luke, their science teacher, is separating them into groups and assigning them to chaperones. Both Sophie and Jessa are in his group and Sophie feels her pulse pounding in her throat when he looks at her. She is at that awkward age of thirteen, not a little girl anymore but not a young woman yet, either, and Mr. Luke's blue eyes and dry, drawling humor gives Sophie a dizzy, floating feeling that is painfully beautiful.

The feeling dissipates when she sees the blue box sitting on the sidewalk. If the box is here, then he must be, too, watching her.

As she enters the museum her senses are on alert; she pays careful attention to her surroundings but she doesn't see him, though she can feel tears on her face and his eyes on the back of her head.

Mr. Luke puts them back on the bus early that day. Sophie is so put out that she doesn't even notice that he did not come back with them until she is at home, watching the museum blow up on the six o'clock news.

- - -

"Can you believe that _Aiden_ got voted off, I totally thought it was going to be Quinn. Aiden was so _cute_. . . "

Sophie is not listening to Jessa gush about realilty TV. Instead, she's cradling her double mocha latte in her hands and trying not to stare at the man across the room. On her face she feels phantom tears.

He's here. It's been years since she'd seen him last, since that day at the science museum, but there he is, sitting at a little table in the back with a coffee and a crossword puzzle, but not paying attention to either. He's just watching.

Today she's got a closer view of him than she's ever had before. Under his suit jacket he's wearing a black t-shirt, the vintage '00s kind with a rude slogan on the front. _I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter_, it reads. The light reflects off his thick, square-rimmed geek glasses and she can't tell what color his eyes are, but she knows he's staring at her.

_Why are you following me?_ she thinks, and hopes the question is clear in her expression.

The man rises suddenly. Throwing a few bills on the table - did he even _count _them? - he picks up his coffee, shoves his crossword in his pocket, and leaves.

". . . I mean, Quinn was an ugly bitch, she _deserves_ to get kicked, why'd Aiden have to. . ."

Sophie stares out the window and wonders what would happen if she ran into that weird blue box sitting in the alley across the street.

_I'd never come out alive_, she thinks, and is disturbed enough by this errant thought to return to the safety of Jessa and reality TV.

- - -

Sophie sees his blue box as she walks past it on the street, but she refuses to even glance at it. She has a class and no time for the phantom with the burning eyes.

He finds her anyway. He always does.

Today, his t-shirt is emblazoned with the words "Led Zeppelin" and a graphic of a burning blimp. Sophie wonders if this is his way of warning the world that he, like the Hindenburg, is doomed to go down in flames.

All she wants to do is get to class on time, but the ghosts of tears are burning on her cheeks and he's speaking to her, saying, "run, Sophie, run," with her hand in his, and beside him is Mr. Luke, her eighth-grade science teacher who disappeared that day at the museum and never came back.

"I knew your mother," says the man who has followed her all her life. "I know you." He offers her his hand and offers her answers. His voice is urgent and she knows this is her choice, her only chance. She can walk away and never again be haunted by ginger hair and burning eyes and blue boxes, or she can go with him and know and understand.

She takes his hand and runs for her life.


End file.
